Eight years after the first of Jon Boden’s dystopian albums was released comes Afterglow, an urban tapestry of sound and stories that leaves one impatient for the final chapter. Here he discusses the albums’ conceptions, folk sociology and the art of leaving space.
It seems that Jon Boden isn’t a musician who sets himself small tasks. The man who fronted the monster that was Bellowhead didn’t stop there but instead decided to begin creating a trilogy of solo albums, starting with Songs from the Floodplain and leading to Afterglow (reviewed here), a bold and big statement about life love and optimism. “Well the first one was released back in 2009 and I think it very much came about because when I wrote it I had recently become a father for the first time, which made me slightly obsessed about the state of the world,” Jon explains. “The unsustainability of the lives we all lead and that led me to think in those terms musically and write a bunch of songs about a rural future situation of a regressed lifestyle.” Afterglow leads on from Floodplain but switches the location to the city and zooms the ‘camera’ in. “Yeah, this is one is more urban and more narrative-driven”, he continues. “It focuses specifically on one night at a street party.”
It’s no real coincidence that Jon has chosen the scene of the streets and music and people colliding to place the new set of songs, with his background so strongly rooted in folk and traditional music and the well-furrowed social elements that come with it. “My life as an adult has been all about getting fired up about folk music, folk custom and folk dance,” he nods. “It’s what excites me both on an artistic level and also on a sociological level because to me it seems that that is where mankind is really strong and when we are in communities and essentially entertaining each other is where we really work. It’s a really powerful source of strength for mankind, so I think in that sense, I come from quite an optimistic standpoint when it comes to post-apocalyptic speculative thinking. A lot of things that we’ve lost will come back.”
As a listening experience, Afterglow sounds both robust and optimistic, with Jon unafraid to create a rich musical landscape, indeed, the feel is often cinematic, but he is careful to distinguish the differences between audio and visual. “Well I’m very influenced by books and films,” he considers, after a moment. “But I think that the great thing about albums, concept albums particularly, is that your aim is quite different; you’re not trying to tell it all in one listen. With a film, you’re trying to tell a whole story and people are probably going to watch it once or twice, and it’s similar with books. With an album, the hope is that people are going to just keep listening to it; I think I need to listen to an album maybe fifty times before it really becomes part of my being. That theory from a story-telling point of view is really interesting because you’re actually deliberately trying to bring somebody into a world but leave space enough for people to wander around in it in their own imagination.”
The space Jon mentions is not only in the at times slightly abstract lyrics, but in the music itself, which is at points full-blown (at the beginning of the album and street party), but can also be restrained and considered. A good example is the electric guitar hanging back in ‘Fires after Midnight’; the temptation to shove it to the front… “Well I think that’s Andy’s [Andy Bell] touch, to be honest,” Jon laughs. “In our co-producing roles, I made lots of unsubtle decisions, saying ‘let’s have it really loud here, it’ll be great!’, while he quietly made it all work coherently. He did listen to what I said throughout, but he was very good at spotting where it needed toning down and knowing how to make it work in a subtle way in places. He has a real gift of getting a whole overview of how an album should work as a whole. Overall I’m delighted with how it came out,” he continues, with a smile. “A lot of albums I’ve made have been done in quite a hurry. I’m really proud of Songs from the Floodplain, for example, but I recorded it in three days and was fitting it in between tours and Fay [Fay Hield] giving birth to our second child and all of that. This album feels like the first one I’ve made, probably ever, where I’ve given it as much time as its needed; we spent a good six months recording, not solidly, but certainly putting the work in, and it feels like it’s as good as it can be, so I’m really proud of it.”
Next for Jon is the tour for the album, which will be as grandiose as one would expect, after hearing Afterglow. You would think it’s a daunting task, but this guy fronted Bellowhead! “Yeah, I’m used to it,” he laughs. “I love strings, so we’re going to be touring with a three string section, which is exciting. In fact, I didn’t play any violin on this album, which is a first for me, but the lines are essentially classical, so I thought it’s best to get a proper professional violinist in to play them [Kiki Chen alongside Helen Bell]. So live, with the strings it’ll be a ten-piece band plus me, so it should pretty close to the album; there’s a lot of layering on there that we won’t be able to do live, but on the other hand you do get a fabulous technical assistant and front of house engineer to make it all work properly, so I think it’s going to sound pretty massive.”
Afterglow is out now on Hudson Records.
Order it here: https://jonboden.lnk.to/afterglow
Tour Dates
October
Fri 13 Lichfield L2F Festival (solo)
Sun 15 Hartlepool Folk Festival, Hartlepool (solo)
Thu 19 Manchester Folk Festival, Manchester (Jon Boden & the Remnant Kings)
Solo – November
Mon 6th Pocklington Arts Centre
Tues 7th The Core at Corby Cube
Weds 8th OPEN, Norwich
Thurs 9th Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
Fri 10th Connaught Theatre, Worthing
Sun 12th Theatre Royal Winchester
Mon 13th Number 8, Pershore
Tues 14th Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings dates – November
Fri 17th Sage Gateshead
Sat 18th The Leadmill, Sheffield
Sun 19th Victoria Hall, Settle
Mon 20th Haverhill Arts Centre
Tues 21st St. Mary’s in the Castle, Hastings
Weds 22nd The Scala, London
Thurs 23rd The Lighthouse, Poole
Fri 24th The Globe, Cardiff
Sat 25th The Cheese & Grain, Frome
Sun 26th Lincoln Performing Arts Centre
Photo credit David Angel